Promise
by AnneCaterina
Summary: Colin has saved up all his life to be able to take a photography master class. But what was supposed to be the best time ever soon turns sour when Colin realizes that all other participants are Purebloods. And they don't even take the class seriously. Except for Ben, who might be more than meets the eye.


**A/N: One-shot for Hogwarts Assignment #6, Notable Witches & Wizards: Notable Muggle Borns, Task #4: Muggle Born character receiving prejudice or hatred for their blood status: Colin Creevey**

**Warning: blood status prejudice**

Colin was good at this, really good. And they hated him for it. But what did they expect? Photography was his everything. This was bad, for Colin had realized that being a photographer in the wizarding world was hopeless. For one, there weren't that many newspapers or magazines to work for. But the other, far worse thing was that most newspaper editors were Purebloods. Hence, they bought pictures from their Pureblood friends, who were also their cousins or aunts or nephews. There was no way Colin could find his way into those tightly-knit circles. But being a photographer was the only thing he had ever wanted, the only thing he could imagine doing.

And this was what had brought him here, into the middle of nowhere. He had saved up all his life to one day be able to take a photography master class. As a child, he had never dreamed that it would be a _magic_ photography master class. Had he known this back then, he would have peed his pants with excitement. In fact, he had still been incredibly excited the very day before he came here. But then, _they_ had happened.

_They_ were a group of friends, most of whom had taken up photography on a whim. And they were likely to drop it again a few months from now, when the novelty had worn off. Their expensive state-of-the-art equipment would gather dust in the haunted attics of their mansions. But right now, they were in the thick of being "photographers". Every day they came out of their luxury cabins wearing pretty 1920's cocktail dresses. They poised and leaned and draped themselves for the cameras of their friends, who, in turn, gave them ridiculous orders as to what to do with their hands and eyes and mouths. "Pout, darling! You need to pout!" Colin had heard one of them say to their model. "And give me doe eyes! Doe eyes! …You know what, I'll show you how. Here, take the camera." Whereupon they had switched places and roles, the other one now giving stupid orders from behind the camera and accusing her friend of not following them properly.

Only one of them, the only other man in the class, seemed to be a bit more serious about photography. His camera wasn't even new. It was a beautiful vintage model with many small dials and a sophisticated lens switching mechanism. He took great care of it. Colin would have loved to take a closer look at the camera, or to talk shop with the guy, who was called Ben. But Ben was always surrounded by his Pureblood friends. Or cousins, or whatever they were. They followed him in a flock, pressing him for tips and to show them how to operate their overpowered cameras. Colin wondered why Ben was here, as he obviously didn't need this class. Which made it even more enraging that he took this class, expensive as it was.

Colin had decided that he would try and do some macro photography this morning. He didn't have the proper kind of lens for it, but the instructor had taught them a little trick the day before. Colin took his magnifying glass, which he usually used to identify plants in herbology, out of his pocket. Out of his other pocket, he produced a roll of spellotape. By trial and error, he had found the proper distance between the objective of his camera and the magnifying glass. He picked up a twig and made it curl itself into a ring with his wand. With another incantation, he peeled off the bark and smoothed the wood so it wouldn't scratch the objective. He put this ring between the objective and the magnifying glass and stuck it all together with tape. He was just about to get up when someone behind him said, "Aren't you handy." Colin's head snapped around. He quickly picked up his camera, trying to block the makeshift macro lens from view.

"That's some very nice spellwork you did there," said Ben. "How old are you?"

"Sixteen," Colin said while glowering at Ben suspiciously.

"You go to Hogwarts?"

Colin nodded. What was Ben up to?

"Sometimes I wish I had gone there. My mom insisted on having me and my sister home-schooled. I'm pretty sure she slept with our so-called tutor." Ben chuckled. At that moment, two girls, one of them dressed in a close-cut gown covered in fringes and a headband with a gigantic peacock feather stuck to it, came down the main path. They stopped. Ben turned around, following Colin's gaze.

"Bennyyyy," the dressed-up girl called. Colin tried to blend into the underbrush behind him. Ben turned back to him, sighing, "Duty calls. I've promised the hens to show them a few tricks about portrait photography."

"Why do you even come here?" Colin burst out. "You already know everything! And this course is so expensive, yet you just… come here for shits and giggles!" Colin felt his face get hot. He had not planned on letting his anger at Ben's privilege run away with him like that.

To his surprise, Ben did not get upset. Instead, he gave Colin a small, sad smile. "The girls want me along. And you are right, they come here for the scenery and the luxury cabins and the fresh air and, most of all, to play dress-up and out-pretty each other. For 'shits and giggles' as you call it. And I tag along. Just to get out once in a while, you know." Ben was looking past Colin's head into the distance. Then, he abruptly turned around and walked up to the girls. Colin stood, his camera still cradled in his arms and wondered if there was more to Ben than met the eye.

In the afternoon, Colin went to the darkroom to develop the shots he had taken during the morning. He tapped the sign-up parchment by the door with his wand to sign in. Once inside the room, he locked the door by magic and lighted a small, red flame in the oil lamp. Its light was just enough to see the large canisters of developer, stopper and fixer fluid in the cupboard that stood against one wall of the room. One by one, Colin heaved them onto the worktable. He went back to the cupboard and blindly felt around a lower shelf, retrieving a number of small round tanks and a metal reel. He set the four tanks, each about the size of a small cantaloupe, side by side onto the table. Holding their labels up to the dim sheen of the red flame, Colin ascertained the contents of the chemical canisters before he poured a little of each of their contents into the designated tank. He did this slowly and deliberately, making sure that the liquid was just enough to cover the reel that he would load the film onto in a moment. Those chemicals were terrible for the environment, but the Purebloods insisted that he throw them away after use. Back at home, in the cupboard-under-the-stairs-turned-darkroom, Colin poured the chemicals back into the canisters after use, as they were good for multiple reuses. But the rich people were afraid that reusing solutions would taint their films. Colin snorted quietly.

Although he could not help thinking that Ben might take a different stance than his cousins or sisters or whatever they were. Colin snapped the back of his camera open, took out the film cartridge and retrieved the film from inside of it. Carefully, he wound the film onto the reel and lowered it into the first tank containing the developer. Now, he had to wait and shake, shake and wait. For thirteen minutes, Colin waited and swirled the tank, making sure the developer chemicals reached every millimetre of his film. Finally, he could take the reel out of the developer and put it into the stopper solution. Only one more step and Colin's film would be ready. He had to calm himself down for he was starting to get giddy with excitement. Would his makeshift macro lens have worked? Hopefully, at least one or two of the photographs had turned out great. He would blow the nicest one up to a large size, have it framed and give it to his mum for her birthday.

In a minute, he could turn the lights back up and open the door to let in some fresh air. He lifted the reel out of the stopper bath and shook it a little to get rid of the excess liquid. The door burst open and light flooded in.

Colin cursed several times, loudly.

"Are you done?" a girl asked, undisturbed by his profanities.

"No, I wasn't!" he shouted.

The girl raised her eyebrows, "That's no way to talk to your superior!"

"How are you my superior?" Colin shouted.

The girl scoffed and said, "In case you weren't aware, I'm a Pureblood. We all are. Well, I can't blame you for being dim, I suppose, can I, little Muggleborn?" She grinned at him condescendingly, raising an eyebrow.

Colin gave a frustrated shout and stormed past her, out of the darkroom, leaving his ruined film there. Couldn't she have come just a few minutes later? And why had she opened the door, anyway, she had to have seen on the sign-up parchment that he was in there. Colin stopped dead. He distinctly remembered locking the door. She had unlocked the door by magic. She had ruined his film fully on purpose.

At dinner, the girls sat at their usual table, sticking their heads together, looking over at Colin in between giggles. Colin's face felt hot. Once, he stole a glance at Ben, who was sitting with the girls. Ben was keeping his head down, focusing solely on his dinner. Colin felt the smallest hint of hope that not everyone here despised him. When they left the dining room, one of the girls said, "Watch your potty mouth Muggle boy!"

From then on, Colin did not dare put his name on the sign-up parchment of the dark room anymore. Instead. He just went into the room way before the others woke up. This was not hard, as they usually did not rise before ten.

Still a little sleepy, Colin pushed down the door handle of the darkroom. To his surprise, the door was locked. "Just a minute," a muffled voice called from inside. A male voice. Colin's heart beat a little faster for a short moment. Soon after, the lock clicked and the door opened. Ben poked his head out. When he saw Colin, he smiled and said, "I have another batch of films. But you can come in. We can develop them together. How many do you have?"

"Just two," Colin said as he slipped into the room. Ben locked the door again from the inside. It was a small space for two people.

"Sorry for rattling the door earlier. There was no one's name on the parchment," Colin said. Ben handed him a reel. Colin squeezed past him to get to the table, where he got the film out of his camera.

"I really need to apologize to you," Ben said while they both swirled the developer solution in their tanks.

"About what?" Of all people here, Ben had been the most civil.

"The girls. They are airheads, really."

Colin was surprised to hear Ben talk so bitterly about his friends. Or cousins. Or whatever. "How do you know them?" Colin asked.

Ben sighed. "The girl with the brown bob cut is my sister, Valerie. The one who always takes pictures of her is her best friend. Then the curly blonde and the one with the beauty mark are cousins of ours and the other three are their friends."

Colin scoffed and said, "No wonder I feel like such an outsider. I'm the only one who is not a friend or relation of anyone here."

"Yes, that's a little unfortunate for you," Ben said. There was a smile in his voice. "Tell you what, I'll talk to them, okay? Tell them to leave you in peace."

"No, don't do that! They'll think I told on them or something."

Ben let out a single burst of laughter, "Why would they think that you came to _me_ for help? We have only talked twice, counting this time right now." Colin did not reply, but he had to admit that Ben had a point. Ben said, "Maybe we could talk more often, though. You and I."

"Right," Colin said.

"Only if you want."

"Yeah, I'd like that." Colin jumped when the stop watch went off with a hoarse ring. Ben laughed.

"Time for the next step!"

Colin was alarmed to see Valerie come up to him at dinner. "Listen," she said with a very sweet smile, "Ben has brought to my attention that maybe the girls and I were a little unfair to you." She paused, looking at Colin expectantly. Was she hoping he'd contradict her? "I'd like to apologize, also on behalf of the girls. To make it up to you, we'd like to invite you to a little outing. We got a vintage Muggle car. We'll take it out for a little drive and a photoshoot tomorrow morning. You can come, if you like."

"Is Ben also coming?" Colin asked Valerie the next morning. She stood by the car with some of the other girls

"No, silly," said Valerie. "The car only seats six. And we can't bewitch it, it's a… loan from a Muggle collector."

His heart sinking, Colin clambered into the back.

He forgot his misgivings during the drive. The scenery was breath-taking. The narrow mountain road wound its way up and down, sometimes running dangerously close to a sheer drop of a few hundred yards. After a half-hour drive, Valerie parked the car. The girls immediately started setting up their gear, ordering each other around and posing in front of the gorgeous landscape. Colin, not quite sure how he fit into their busy occupations, wandered off a little. He watched the girls from afar. their posing and busying themselves with their cameras had something compelling. Colin started taking pictures of them. Tiny, dressed-up figures in front of a sliver of ocean and misty mountains beyond the water. Fleeting prettiness juxtaposed with eternal beauty. Colin's camera clicked away.

After putting in a new roll of film, Colin built his makeshift macro lens back up. The landscape was barren, but if one just looked closely enough, one could find a great diversity of life. Lichens of many colours and soft, dark moss were perfect subjects for macro photography. Colin had to lie down to capture their beauty. Moisture started soaking through his shirt. Maybe he could get his jacket from the car to use as a tarp. He got up and brushed dirt off his front. He turned to walk back to the car. It was gone. So were the girls. Colin looked up and down the road, his heartbeat quickening. Had he walked so far that he could not see them around a bend in the road? But no, there was the little parking lot. They were gone and had left him behind.

Confusion made way for anger, anger for desperation. Why would they do this? Was it his fault, because he had been taking their picture without asking first? Had they invited him on this trip solely for the purpose to humiliate him? But more pressing was the question of how he should get back. How long would it take to walk? Colin hadn't yet learned to Apparate. He felt hot tears prick at his eyes. But he could not waste his energy on self-pity. He had to walk.

Darkness fell. Colin had readjusted his camera bag from one shoulder to the other countless times, but now both his shoulders were too sore to find a comfortable position. Speaking of sore, his knees were killing him – an affliction he had inherited from his grandmother.

Colin had walked for he knew not how many hours. The night wind had a bite, in spite of it being summer. The pain in Colin's knees had spread to his ankles and hips. Every step was torture. Finally, Colin gave up. He sank down onto a slab of rock, put his face in his hands and started to sob. The pain of being despised just because of who his parents were, of being shunned and ridiculed, made its way to the surface and came flooding out. He had not cried like this since he was ten, when his budgerigar had died.

A faint crack in the distance made Colin catch his breath. Was that a gunshot? He could hear someone call out a word repeatedly. There was another crack, this time closer and behind him. Now, he could hear what the person was shouting. It was his own name. The voice was Ben's. Colin jumped up, sniffled and wiped his nose with his sleeve before he called, "Ben? I'm over here!"

Colin heard Ben's running footsteps before he saw him. Ben grabbed Colin by the shoulders and peered at him in the dark. "Are you okay? I'm so sorry! I'd never have guessed that they would go this far!"

"I'm okay" Colin said quietly. He was incredibly tired all of a sudden.

"Come on, I'll Apparate both of us back." Ben held out his arm.

"I don't want to go back," Colin murmured. "I give up. If they don't want me there, I'll just leave."

Ben was quiet for a while, then said, "I get it. But you don't need to give up. Please don't. I really like having you there." There was a smile in Ben's voice again.

Colin made a sound between a hiccup and a relieved laugh. "I don't know… they'll never leave me alone."

"Tell you what, I'll switch sides. I'm tired of jumping every time they ring for me. You and I will just go off every day taking proper photographs. They can do their stupid beauty shots without me." He paused, then said, his voice now quiet, "All these years I have hoped to meet someone at this class who takes photography seriously. Now I finally found you. I don't want to let you slip away again."

Colin had to admit that this sounded great. Taking pictures without being disturbed, having someone to talk to, being alone with Ben…

Colin's heart gave a few quick thumps. He said, "Okay. But you need to promise not to leave me alone with them. Ever.

Ben laughed. "I promise!" he said.

Back at Ben's cabin, Colin was sipping a cup of ginger tea that Ben had made for him to alleviate the nausea from the side-along Apparition.

"Why would they just leave me there?" Colin asked.

Ben sighed and said, "They feel threatened by you. Your talent. It's the one thing that Galleons can't buy and they know it." He let out a humourless chuckle. "They are not used to having to work to achieve something."

"But you're so much better than them too."

"Yes, but I come from the same Pureblood privilege. But you, a Muggleborn… how dare you be underprivileged and still so much better than them!"

The two of them laughed quietly. Colin looked at Ben. Ben smiled at him. Ben's dark eyes had a really nice shape. Maybe he would let Colin take his photo sometime. Colin would have loved to ban those eyes on film forever. But this would have to wait until another day. Colin was dead tired. Ben scrutinized him. "I have a second bedroom… it's all made up. Then you won't have to walk all the way back to your cabin…"

Colin's heartbeat sped up again. He shot a quick glance at Ben and cursed his face for getting hot yet again. "Alright. Thanks," Colin said, not daring to look up. Suddenly, Ben's hand was on Colin's cheek, his fingers lightly touching Colin's jaw. They felt soft and wonderful. Colin lifted his head, gazing into Ben's eyes. "Please stay," Ben said quietly.


End file.
